Web Fluid Wingman
by ForASecondThereWe'dWon
Summary: MJ interrupts Peter masturbating. Oh no, wait, he's just struggling with a malfunctioning web-shooter. Sounds like a double entendre, but it's not. What it *is* is a major inconvenience, because now MJ's hand is glued to Peter's. Thanks, nerd.


**Author's Note:**

Based on the Tumblr prompt: 13. "I made the mistake of thinking 'This can't get weirder.' Sorry."

* * *

"Peter?" MJ knocked on the door of the boys' changing room. "I know you said you have to go, because it's an emergency. I just wanted to…" She trailed off for a few seconds, feeling weird about talking to a door. "Don't worry about coming back to practice. Everybody's gone already."

When he didn't answer, she eased the door open a little, keeping her gaze on the floor.

"Peter? I saw you come in here. Did you leave?"

There was a faint noise that made MJ frown in confusion. A sort of groaning. Then, a gasp like someone who badly needed to catch their breath. She wasn't usually the person to jump in and play the hero or whatever, but if someone was in here making those sounds, they might be in trouble. And if it was just Peter, that was ok. She could help Peter and deny it later.

A rubber sole squeaked on the tile floor and MJ snuck into the changing room, striding quietly down the aisles of lockers until she found signs of life: a backpack left out on a bench and the dork himself standing in the far corner. He had his back to her. He was grunting.

She walked towards him and realized she couldn't see his hands, couldn't see them though he seemed to have his arms straight down in front of his body. Peter panted and MJ felt a flush rise up her face like hot steam. Had she just walked in on him with his hands down his pants? Oh god, she had to leave.

"Uh, sorry," she said quickly, and stumbled in her attempt to retreat, just enough to bang her shoulder into a hollow metal locker with a wobbly clang.

Peter whipped around, eyes wide.

"MJ?"

She tried to look away, cover her eyes, but even as she turned her head, her gaze darted down in curiosity.

"Wait…" MJ narrowed her eyes and stepped closer. "What do you have on your wrist?"

He had his wrist clamped in his opposite hand, tugging frantically. As she automatically reached out, some kind of liquid shot into the air. Peter's hand batted at it, hers jerked upwards to draw back, and their palms smacked together.

"Please tell me that wasn't―"

"It wasn't," he promised quickly.

Peter was bright red. He seemed to be telling the truth though; she darted a look at his crotch and saw his jeans were definitely not hanging open to expose his, well, to let him do what she'd briefly thought he'd been doing.

"Just some kind of freaky Spider-Man goo then?"

"Wha-what?"

MJ rolled her eyes and drew back her hand to cross her arms in a _spare me your pathetic deceptions_ gesture. Her hand came, but Peter's came with it. Reflexively, she shook her arm, and his arm shook too, riding the wave of her increasingly frantic flapping.

"What the hell is this? Peter, what did you do?"

Their hands were still pressed together―_glued_, more like―at the palms. This wasn't your regular white craft glue either, it was some kind of Spider-Man-grade adhesive bullshit and it had zero give. Apparently, the drying time was instant and it was very effective on flesh surfaces.

"I was… working on a diorama," he began, "f-for World History?"

MJ glared at him. She raised her free hand and counted out the facts for him on her fingers.

"You're lying," she said, flicking her thumb up, "you're Spider-Man, and you're not even taking World History."

"How do you know I'm not taking World History?"

Oh, those innocent, brown, Bambi eyes.

"Because I memorized your class sched- never mind." MJ needed to not freak out because freaking out was making her answer questions it would be far better to avoid. The last person she wanted knowing that she watched everything Peter Parker did was Peter Parker. "One more thing," she added, raising another finger. "You're getting me out of this right now."

"I can't."

"Stop it, loser," she said with a sigh, letting their hands drop. "Spare us both the time it'll take for you to come up with an excuse I'm not going to believe anyway. I know you're Spider-Man, so quit pretending you don't know what's going on."

"I know you know." Her eyebrows shot up at his words. Peter shuffled his feet in agitation, MJ's arm swinging with his. "I mean, I didn't know, and I'm totally horrified that you figured it out, but I also believe that you figured it out because you're smart and, and, I can't fix this."

As his shoulders slumped, what he'd said sank in for her.

"But you _did_ this," she reminded him, sending a tremor through their arms.

"Not on purpose! I was trying to leave, like I said," he insisted, expression earnest, doing his damnedest to gesture with both hands, "and I put the web-shooter on―" She assumed that was the thing around his wrist. "―but it made this weird sound, which it shouldn't have done because, obviously, I maintain my stuff really carefully, like, it saves my life on a regular basis, you know? Or at least saves me from breaking my leg or something if I fell while I was swinging―"

MJ wished he'd accidentally sealed his lips together instead of their hands. Her face was severely unimpressed.

"―so I went to take it off again," he was saying, "but I couldn't get it, and then… and then… you came in."

"What. The. FUCK!" she shouted, getting some of her frustration out. She felt better right away, catching her breath. Their hands were attached with 'web-shooter' goop that MJ had mistaken for ejaculate. Their palms could not be separated. These were facts, and facts were something she could deal with. In a calmer voice, she explained, "I made the mistake of thinking 'This can't get weirder.' Sorry."

"I can unstick our hands," Peter promised. "Just not here. I have a compound that washes this stuff away like it's nothing, but I keep it in my closet. In, um, my room."

"Well then that's where we're going."

He looked a little stunned.

"We're going… to my bedroom?"

"To get the unsticking compound," MJ repeated. "Keep up, Parker."

Peter gave her a self-deprecating smile that made her automatically lick her lip. Hopefully he couldn't feel her pulse too strongly in her hand, because it had definitely accelerated, but he probably could. Because he was Spider-Man. Just like she'd guessed!

Hmm. Maybe vindication would taste a little sweeter when she had a chance to be alone and retreat into her own thoughts. He was too much, too close, standing here next to her.

"Let me just grab my backpack," Peter said, pointing behind her.

MJ turned with him and he slung it up off the bench and onto his shoulder. She still had hers over the opposite shoulder, so at least she wasn't trapped in the straps of her backpack. Just trapped with him. The part of her brain where her intense crush on Peter was currently being suppressed sent some good feelings through her body. _Shut up_, she thought at herself.

Aloud, she said, "We should hold hands." No, that wasn't the crush talking, it was pure logic. Sort of.

"Hold hands?"

"Yeah, so we don't look, you know, _affixed_ with industrial-strength glue."

"Right, uh, good idea. How should we?"

They studied their hands. His had come down while hers went up, and they'd been facing each other, so their fingers didn't align. Instead, their palms met on a diagonal and it was pretty easy to curl their fingers around the each other's hand. MJ grasped the side of his palm, pinky hooked over his wrist, and Peter's fingers folded over the curve of her thumb. They looked up at each other and she saw agreement in his eyes. She then had to remind herself that he wasn't looking that way because he actually wanted to hold her hand, it was just dealing with an unexpected and unwelcome scenario.

"Now maybe we should…" Peter started to say, then finished his thought with an action.

Watching her face carefully, he raised his arm in the air, elbow higher than his head. MJ understood what he was doing. She glanced at the floor and took a quick breath, then rolled in to him like they were dancing. His arm ended up draped across her shoulders, hers bent at the elbow to cut across her chest. Their hands were clasped over her collarbone.

"Could be worse, right?" he checked, sounding nervous. Likely just anxious that this sorry attempt at a disguise would be totally obvious.

"Looks credible enough," MJ assented. "People… in relationships… probably walk like this."

She glanced at his face and realized how close it was to hers. And he was staring right back at her. Willing away a blush, MJ reached up with her free hand and tenderly pulled her trapped hair out from under his arm.

"Oh, sorry," Peter said, yanking his arm up and out of her way. It made her nearly clock herself in the jaw with her own hand, stuck fast to his.

MJ raised a pacifying hand before he could apologize again. When he settled his arm back around her, it seemed to hold her slightly closer to his body than before. Which was fine. Obviously not on purpose. It gave their arms more slack if their bodies were closer; that was probably exactly what he'd meant to do.

"We need to catch a bus, right?" she asked as they cautiously exited the change room, peering both ways down the empty hall.

Of course, she knew the answer, but she was really trying to keep herself under control for the rest of this misadventure. They would go to his place, fix this, and then forget about the whole thing. Apprising Peter of how much she'd noticed about him was not a necessary conversation within the scope of this plan.

"Yeah. You alright?" He turned his head to look at her again, but MJ just nodded without meeting his eye. He was way too close and she wasn't mentally prepared to be casually almost brushing noses every time they spoke. "Ok, come on. I don't normally leave this late, so it might be busy."

It _was_ busy. It was the start of rush hour. The busses were clogged in traffic, slow to arrive, and many too full to accommodate a conjoined Peter and MJ once they did. They had to stand at the bus stop for ages, her tucked into him, him curled around her, exchanging awkward smiles, out in public like they did this all the time. When a less packed bus squawked up to the curb, the two of them had to fumble for their passes. Peter seemed pretty ok managing to swing his bag down his arm, catch the handle in his teeth, and dig his bus pass out with his free hand; MJ lost a few seconds being gobsmacked at the fluidity of his motions.

"Can you get yours?" Peter asked, at about the same moment she remembered she'd stuffed her pass into her front right pocket and now didn't have her right hand available to retrieve it.

MJ really tried to reach across with her left hand and wriggle her fingers into the pocket. She could touch the edge of her bus pass, but the angle was no good. She couldn't pull it out. Normally, she would've persevered (normally, she wouldn't have been glued to Peter Parker), but the bus would only wait so long. They were the last to get on and traffic was thinning up ahead as a string of streetlights turned green.

"No," she said, defeated. "It's too deep."

He'd been watching her struggle, not attempting to intervene (she would've told him to back off), so he knew what to do when she nodded, inviting him to try. It only took a few second, but in that time, his hot hand was pressed against her hip, wiggling down her thigh inside the pocket of her jeans. The shift of Peter's fingers through the thin cotton of the pocket's interior casually turned her inside out. MJ was flushed and restless, a little abrupt as she plucked the liberated bus pass from between his index and middle fingers.

They flashed their passes to a driver who, like most, probably couldn't care less, and maneuvered clumsily down the aisle. They didn't get far because there were a couple dozen other passengers, and because the bus lurched forward and they were forced to grab onto something. Peter, with his Spider-Man reflexes, grabbed a swaying rubber handhold. MJ apparently had useless instincts, because she didn't go for any of the germy supports the bus offered; her hand just tightened around Peter's and he jerked her closer so she wouldn't fall. Her backpack slid off her shoulder and she held it in front of her with her left hand, not wanting to risk smacking a stranger if she heaved it back into place.

She turned her head and felt a lot of emotions take turns on her face: gratitude, surprise, annoyance. The ride smoothed out after the initial surge and MJ would've shuffled away to put as much space between their bodies as possible, but a few people rose from their seats and headed towards the rear door. Instead of moving farther from Peter, MJ had to get closer―a lot closer. As the group of passengers contracted to make room for those exiting, she found herself not under Peter's arm, but with her back to his chest. His arm encircling her all the way to her opposite shoulder. His exhale tickling down her neck where her hair didn't cover it.

"Sorry," he started, "I can't…"

"That's ok," MJ assured him, quick and terse.

The bus braked aggressively at the next stop and she braced her feet firmly. Peter must not have been ready, or maybe he couldn't see around her since he wasn't tall enough, because his hips bumped into her from behind. Just as MJ couldn't imagine any more contact, he gripped her hip.

"Sorry," Peter mumbled again, using her hip as leverage to pull his own away from her. She couldn't decide if his Spider-Man powers meant he should've been able to stop himself before colliding with her so intimately, or if Spider-Man was just as susceptible to bus inertia as every other rider.

She shook her head like that agitation would dislodge his apologies. It didn't _bother_ her, the contact. The only shitty thing about it was that it wasn't on purpose. But MJ couldn't think about that right then. He'd probably hear her accelerated heartbeat or see her pulse thump beneath her skin at her throat.

Or.

Was this an opportunity? Starting with walking in on Peter when she'd thought he was masturbating, this afternoon had been a series of looks and touches that never should've happened. His hand in her pocket. Her butt against his groin. Their goddamn hands bonded with an adhesive Peter'd probably invented himself, the nerd. And he hadn't seemed to mind, not any of it, not if MJ forgot about her personal embarrassment for a second and reflected on his reactions. If there was ever a time to, well, _try something_―put the moves on him, so to speak―this was it, here in a scenario overflowing with potential excuses. The bus rocked, the people pushed and squirmed, and the noise! Surely, with all of these bodies, he wouldn't notice _her_ heartbeat picking up its usually lazy pace.

MJ took the next opening to press back into Peter. Stiff, she waited to see if he'd re-establish their little buffer of empty space. He didn't. Maybe he felt slightly tenser where his chest met her shoulder blades, or maybe he was just attempting to remain upright. Huh. Peter not upright. Peter―deep breath, MJ―flat on his back. That was a thought. She acted on that tempting concept, nudging his crotch as she straightened her spine. There, that could've been accidental.

She did it once more, always standing on the figurative shoulders of the bus driver, who was doing the good work of driving this bus really badly, thereby making these touches possible.

"Careful," Peter said, just under his breath, just to her.

It sounded like a genuine warning, as though he was really worried about her safety, and MJ was going to bite back with something snarky, probably rude. Until his hand landed back on her hip. And stayed there, not guiding her away. Her body felt misted with heat, and no, it wasn't sweaty bus condensation.

"Of what?" she asked, turning her head just enough to suggest she was listening. Loosely framing their conversation so she could escape should Peter back out.

"I don't know yet."

He withdrew his fingers from her hip very slowly. MJ's breathing sped up and she almost turned all the way around to face him, but she controlled herself.

"Two more stops," Peter informed her.

"Ok," she acknowledged lightly.

Her cheeks were hot.

He prioritized her―tripping and shuffling to clear a path for her―as they pressed their way to the rear door, his block approaching. When the door folded open, MJ couldn't remember how they'd managed to get on the bus smoothly. Were they going to have to count to three and jump out together to avoid mistiming their steps and leaving one or both of them with a rolled ankle?

While she puzzled, Peter cut through the thought process; his hand around her shoulder dropped to her waist. It made the side of her hand slide straight over her boob while the heel of his hand caressed it from the side. Before she could say anything about Parker coping a feel, he hugged her against him and lifted her down to the sidewalk. Effortless. That was what had her mentally stumbling to catch up to what had just happened. She had the height on him, but he'd picked her up (and her backpack, stuffed to punishing fullness with hardcovers) without a hint of strain. Right, the Spider-Man thing. He was probably hurrying so they could get up to his apartment and separate.

As MJ went to ask him which building on this block was his, Peter glanced at her. The look held a long time, even with the door squealing shut behind them and the bus thundering away. It held almost as well as their hands. She swallowed. But the compound keeping their palms stuck together had been engineered by Peter on purpose. Their handhold had not.

Fuck. The combination of the look in his brown eyes―so transparent―and the series of necessary yet highly intimate touches was really… it was making it… thinking was just…

"It's that one," Peter said, pointing to an ordinary grey building.

MJ glanced up, head tilted back. It wasn't really to get a better look at the apartment building (who hadn't seen one of those?), but to let the trickle of air that qualified as wind in these crowded blocks to pass over her face. After a couple of seconds, she rolled her head to the side to look at Peter.

"I hope you don't have your heart set on taking the stairs, 'cause that's not going to work." She jostled their clasped hands.

He laughed weakly and, not meeting MJ's eye, moved his arm from around her waist back up to her shoulder, then lowered it again, then raised it, then left it hovering somewhere in between like he suddenly didn't know how to touch her. She wanted to tell him that either was fine―the weight of his forearm draping over her shoulder or the pseudo-protective squeeze of it fitting into the dip of her waist―but she was feeling a little tangled up. Not just with her arm crossing her body. Tongue-tied.

When they went to enter the building (waist it was), an elderly woman stepped out and shot them a sweet, knowing smile. Peter didn't say anything to disabuse the old lady of the idea of him and MJ as a couple. His lack of response was probably due to his concentration on grabbing the door with his free hand so it wouldn't close on the woman, but MJ heard acceptance in the silence. It flummoxed her and she decided to flummox him right back.

"Can't keep our hands off each other," she volunteered with a conspiratorial (maybe? Was she doing the smile right?) grin as the senior trundled past.

So it was unclear whether or not the woman had heard her, but Peter sure as hell did. It could've been true that MJ felt his pulse thump through his thumb, where it curled around the heel of her hand, or maybe that was only one of several things she imagined about him as she darted through the door he was still holding open. He almost tripped, dragged behind her.

She allowed him to do the honours of pressing the button for the elevator while she smiled benignly, very much not meeting Peter's eye.

"MJ," he said softly, seconds dropping away like the lowering floor numbers displayed digitally above the elevator door as their ride descended. She snuck a look at him from the corner of her eye and saw him wet his lip. Readying to speak. Preparing. She felt dizzy anticipation and held his hand tighter. "MJ."

The door dinged open to a scene of minor chaos featuring an extremely dad-looking person with a baby―legs dangling―tucked into a carrier on his chest and a toddler―legs viciously kicking like the kid was trying to fling their shoes off (looked likely)―in the stroller he wheeled out in front of him.

"Hold the door," the man gasped, just catching the baby's tiny hat as the child dipped forward in an effort to examine its father's forearm.

Again, Spider-Man used his Peter Parker disguise to aid the populous on the sly, slapping his palm to the edge of the door and maintaining who knew how much pressure to make sure it didn't budge as the man got all four wheels of the stroller going in the right direction and escaped.

This time, in his haste to be the door-holding hero, he'd tugged MJ close to him. His front wasn't fit as fully to her back as it had been on the bus, but even partially aligned, she had some distinctly unvoiceable questions about what was pressing against her butt.

She cleared them out of her throat with a light cough and stepped into the elevator, the door of which Peter continued to diligently restrain until they were fully inside.

"No comment for that guy?" he asked lightly as the door slid shut. MJ glanced quickly at him.

"Well, he has two little kids. I think the memory of what extended hand-holding can lead to is pretty fresh in his mind. I don't want to assume, but I'd guess it's been longer for the old lady."

"Ha!" Peter blurted out. "Right."

MJ heard him drum his fingers against the wall of the elevator―possibly out of view, but she wasn't going to check, because his free arm was hanging at his side, which would mean his hand was near his hip, and she couldn't look towards his hip, since that would put his crotch in her line of sight, and if there was anything _happening_ in that region, well. Was that something she could deal with?

"Nice, um, elevators," she noted stupidly, nodding around their little metal box as it rose.

"Yeah, they're, uh, faster than the stairs," he agreed, equally idiotic, but she couldn't fault him for following her example.

"Peter―"

"MJ―"

They spoke together and blushed together too when their gazes crossed like laser beams in the vault of a heist movie.

"Your heart's racing," he observed quietly, thumb fleetingly stroking the inside of her wrist.

"I'm afraid of elevators." Wow, maybe they could just go back to the ground floor, walk outside, and wait for the next bus to hit her. It would sever their connection and end the moronic stream of her words. Two birds, one stone.

"But a minute ago, you said―"

"I'm also afraid of awkward silences."

"Are our silences awkward?"

_Do not react just because the nerd used the word 'our_,_'_ she coached herself determinedly.

"I don't know, Peter, but we've already managed to superglue―and I use the prefix 'super' _literally_ here―our hands together today. Pretty hard to anticipate any other kind of interaction between us not being a mess."

"So no… other kinds of interactions," he clarified and she spied on him from the corner of her eye again to realize he was teasing her.

"Better not risk it."

"Maybe the web fluid thing is the worst that'll happen, and it's already happened, and anything else we did would be fine," Peter suggested. _Anything else we did? _she thought, finding it suddenly a little stuffy, a little warm in the elevator. "Maybe you just need a sign."

The elevator dinged to announce their arrival at Peter's floor. MJ turned her head fully to glare at him.

"You knew that was going to happen. Loser."

They ambled to the door of his apartment―clasped hands like a third person they carried between them―where he dropped his backpack and she was forced to bend over next to him, while he rooted around for his key. Retrieving it, Peter said, "So, my aunt won't be home yet."

"She knows right? About Spider-Man?"

"Yeah, she―watch your step," he warned as they maneuvered inside, past a small heap of shoes. "She knows, it just might be weird." Peter shrugged.

"Right, yeah," MJ agreed, waiting while he locked the door. "I guess she'd wonder why I know such an important secret about you, even if you're not very good at keeping it."

He frowned and she smirked, making him smile in return. Clearly, he was more comfortable in his own home, where his secret wasn't a secret and he had the tools to fix little mishaps like this.

"No," Peter disagreed, but in a low mumble. "I actually don't think she'd be that surprised to see you." Louder, he added, "My room's this way."

Everything about the hallway was ordinary, except for the fact that MJ never thought she'd be walking down it. To Peter's bedroom. With his arm tucked snugly around her. (His forearm was a warm, solid bar at her waist. It was frighteningly easy to imagine him scooping her up and carrying her. Easy and dangerous.)

"Uh," he said awkwardly, pushing the door wider when they reached his room so they could step inside at the same time.

She couldn't look at him, or at his bed, and it was a lot of effort to avoid both in the relatively small space, but MJ made that effort. Letting her body be loose enough to be rotated and guided around the room as Peter rummaged for what he needed to unstick them, she kept her gaze moving. Pictures of him and Ned. Open textbooks. A closet left ajar, where she glimpsed a rumpled row of t-shirts (likely the pun-bearing variety). The question of where he kept the rest of his clothes―namely his underwear―entered her mind. She exhaled unsteadily. Ok, that was the end of looking around.

MJ observed Peter once more, watching as he gave an opaque ketchup bottle a hearty shake. He glanced at her, face always too close (and not close enough).

"Ready?"

She narrowed her eyes at the bottle.

"_Ketchup_? That's your super-secret compound?"

"Yeah, the combination of the vinegar and the natural sugars from the tomatoes are safe to eat, but really effective at dissolving web fluid. If I ever run into somebody who fights by squirting ketchup at me, I'm totally screwed."

They stared at each other.

"You're messing with me," she decided. Peter grinned.

"It is the compound I told you about though," he promised, holding the tip of the bottle over their joined hands. "I try to keep my important stuff not too obvious."

"Right. Your bedroom is the most logical place to keep a bottle of ketchup. No one would ever question that."

Peter laughed, then raised his eyebrows at her, poised with the apparently-not-a-hotdog-condiment. There was no doubt, no thought of not trusting him. The only oddity that did occur to MJ was that they hadn't unwound themselves from each other; their glued hands were positioned in front of her and to make it so that they were nearly centered for Peter as well, he was once again crowded up against her back.

"This won't, like, burn my hand off, will it?" she asked, keeping her voice as monotone as possible. The prospect of her skin being scalded or melted or corroded gave her an adrenaline kick nearly as strong as the one she felt with Peter wrapped around her.

He didn't laugh at her.

"No, no pain. It'll just take a few seconds to seep between our hands and get to work. On skin, it goes kinda crumbly and then you can brush it off."

MJ took a breath.

"Do it before I have time to evaluate how much trust I have in an amateur chemist who keeps his concoctions in ketchup bottles," she demanded, releasing her fingers' grasp. He did the same, so that only their palms were in contact.

Peter pushed the tip to the seam of their glued hands and squeezed the bottle, following the join all the way around, tilting their hands to make sure he didn't miss even a millimeter (she assumed his vision was that precise).

Once he'd circled around to his starting point, Peter flipped the bottle right-way-up and set it on his desk.

"It wasn't so bad, right?" he asked, not looking at her when she stole a glance at him. "Being stuck together?"

"It wasn't the worst," MJ agreed.

Together, they stared at their hands while the compound attacked the web fluid. There actually wasn't much to see from the outside. The stuff didn't even run down their wrists or between their fingers. Peter's breathing was happening very close to her ear and she wondered if he would question the goosebumps springing up along her arms.

"What if it doesn't work?" she asked quietly―somewhat hopefully―staring hard at a small scar on the back of her hand where a girl had pinched her in the fifth grade.

"There's mustard in the fridge. We could try that."

MJ turned her head to glare at him as Peter turned to grin at her, probably anticipating some snarky remark. She wasn't confident that she'd really had one ready, but there was definitely nothing waiting to be said when their noses bumped.

"Or Worcestershire sauce," he mumbled, angling his head.

"Lime juice, maybe."

His breath against her mouth was vaguely fruity―artificial, but not unpleasant. MJ recalled that he'd been chewing gum during decathlon practice.

Her lips had just brushed his when they stumbled into each other, faces glancing off one another's. The first thought she had, bizarrely, was 'earthquake.' But no, it was just that the not-ketchup had worked its magic and their palms had come unattached all of a sudden. She hadn't realized she'd been putting pressure on that connection, leaning into him, not just casually touching with accidental adhesion. Really holding him without chemical interference.

Slowly, Peter unwound his arm from around her; it didn't immediately disappoint MJ that he hadn't leapt back into the almost-kiss, because she was examining her own hand. The palm was nearly a stranger to her. No, she was being dramatic. Must be the influence of the nerd in front of her and she'd absorbed it by osmosis when their lips had touched.

She was sweeping the debris from her hand (like he'd said to do), watching the beige-ish rain fall onto the desk, when Peter yanked up his sleeve. The whatever-it-was that had released the incommodious web fluid was fastened around his wrist, but with a grunt and a twist and rubbed-red skin, he removed it. He flung the device across his bedroom, straight into his closet. It smacked the closet's back wall and made the sound MJ now knew to associate with web fluid being released. Pretty much instantaneously, the closet door banged closed on its own.

MJ turned to Peter.

"You probably just glued your closet shut."

He laughed and nodded, looking like he was intentionally setting that worry aside for the moment. Soon, she thought, he'd panic over the fate of his t-shirts.

With a subtle lick of his bottom lip that she―with her eyes fixed on his face―would've had to be blind not to see, Peter reached out and stroked the back of her hand gently with his fingertips.

"What are you doing?" she asked, already rotating her wrist so that his fingers could skate across her palm.

"I thought we could do it on purpose," Peter explained.

He aligned their fingers, then edged his over slightly to slip between hers. They folded their fingers in unison, locking their palms together. They were holding hands, the way people did it for real, not because they were involved in what was essentially an off-site lab accident, in which their super-dork friend unintentionally coated their palm with an unfamiliar and extremely effective adhesive. It was nice.

MJ kissed him quickly, face darting into his personal space and out again, leaving Peter looking shell-shocked. He let go of her hand.

"Well, that's―" she started to say, recognizing the novel change of their palms _not_ being stuck together semi-permanently.

But then his hand landed on the side of her face and he kissed her much more insistently. That was what unbalanced MJ the most: Peter's determination. Like he'd been thinking about doing that for more than the two seconds since she'd kissed him. Then again, his pre-elevator boner was pretty hard evidence. No pun intended because what was she? One of his stupid t-shirts? Not that she could imagine Peter Parker ever owning a shirt that alluded to dicks or arousal or―unlikeliest of all―legal proceedings. (The whole Spider-Man gig was kinda a detour around the established justice system, wasn't it? Not that she was complaining.)

MJ couldn't imagine Peter backing her into his desk either, but that one he did do, mouth urgent on hers because she'd responded unrestrainedly. She took a second to push away from the desk though, not really wanting any of that crumbly stuff stuck to the seat of her jeans. If that ended up with her forcing Peter into the wall, who could blame her? His hand hadn't so much crept as dove around the back of her neck, gripping her head through her hair, while the other hand continued to cup her face.

Some kind of irresistible pull, like a black hole maybe, was drawing her into him. It saved MJ from thinking about how she didn't know what she was doing or wondering how she was supposed to handle Peter. Her hands squeezed his shoulders and her feet scooted closer to his and her mouth opened a tiny, terrifying bit, making her heart plummet, then float back up when she felt the hint of Peter's tongue touching her lips.

The movement of their lips softened as they tried this new thing, taking turns edging their tongues farther into each other's mouths, allowing them to meet and retreat. But their hands held each other's bodies with greater resolve. MJ slid her palms from Peter's shoulders around to rub across his upper back. While she levered the top halves of their torsos together, he went for the bottom halves, fingernails rasping over denim as he took desperate hold of her hips and pulled them closer.

There was no question now about what was happening in the front of Peter's jeans; he'd brought her as solidly into contact with his erection as she'd done pushing his back against the bedroom wall. He panted into MJ's mouth and she wrapped him tighter in her arms, dipping her fingers down the neck of his shirt.

Peter shuddered, but she was the one who got goosebumps. A tingle raced up her spine and a heavy feeling settled lower; she was getting wet. MJ's newest urge was to open herself up to him somehow. Ok, not _somehow_―open her legs, specifically, so she could feel the rigid length behind his zipper pressed somewhere other than her abdomen. Somewhere she could press back and feel whatever Peter was feeling when she rocked gently against him and his breaths came harsh and short.

He kissed quickly over to her ear as his hands shoved the fabric of her long-sleeved shirt upwards, enough for his warm thumbs to land on MJ's skin just above the waist of her jeans. Peter's shirt buttoned and she heard how he breathed differently when she unwound one arm from around him to lightly circle a button over his chest. Her heart swung metronomically as she strove to stay still. As if _this_ could scare the boy who scaled skyscrapers.

MJ began, slowly, to unbutton his shirt. Peter watched, head angled down, but still pressed to hers so that the shallow crater of his temple fit to her cheek. She wanted to cup his face and hold it there to hers, only she couldn't spare the hand.

She was breathing fast through her nose as she neared the final button, working from the top down. Peter's shirt hung open across his chest now and MJ looked. In another second, MJ _touched_, just the tips of her index fingers, stroking an inch or two down his stomach. He pushed her shirt higher and when the look on his face told her he couldn't stand it anymore, he stopped holding the shirt and held her bare waist instead.

Peter exhaled and MJ hadn't realized how quiet it'd been before that. She finished his buttons.

His mouth caught hers as she was reaching for his shoulders, so MJ had to push his shirt off blindly, eyes shut into the rushed intensity of the kiss. Peter rotated them, putting her back to the wall with a careful grip on her waist. It made her heart skip, even though they got their feet tangled in Peter's shirt and almost tripped.

"I can…?" Peter mumbled, edging her shirt up even with the lower line of her bra.

MJ raised both arms and pressed them to his bedroom wall. She grinned when he met her eyes. He laughed excitedly and drew her shirt over her chest, then swiftly over her head. MJ shook her hair out of her face and wiggled her arms down to help Peter reach all the way to her hands as he slid her arms from the sleeves. He dropped her shirt and swallowed. Then, his gaze fell.

She wanted to cross her arms or dig her fingers into anxious fists at her sides, but MJ made herself reach out to Peter and ended up clutching his forearms while she eyed him the same way he was eyeing her.

With a longing sigh, his hands went again to her waist and hers stole up his arms (lingering on his biceps) to hold his shoulders, bracketing the breadth of them with choked-back awe. Their feet shuffled closer until neither of them was touching the wall.

They kissed and it was new all over again. All MJ could think about was closing the space between them; in execution, it wasn't immediate. It was a little dance, both of them moving nearer with their eyes shut while they kissed. She, at least, was unable to judge the distance without sight. Peter was probably a bit better at that.

Her whole body tingled at the first touch of her torso to his. Suddenly, it was easier and their hands gripped and ran over each other like water. Like water, finding every dip, smoothing over every plain. MJ was wrapped up in Peter not just because of his arms, but those helped, firm and strong when they encircled her. Their mouths were hot and quick and Peter groaned when she slipped her tongue into his. She pushed her hips forward, chasing another sound like that, and he gave her one.

Flattened to MJ's back, his hand nestled under the band of her bra to keep her close. He could probably feel her nipples through the soft white cups, right? If he couldn't then, he definitely could when his other hand caressed up her stomach at a polite, deliberate pace―giving her lots of time to stop him―before running into her bra. Peter panted, a wet breath through his mouth, hovering his hand over her breast. MJ wanted him to hurry up and touch her so badly that she was in danger of chewing her top lip off.

His palm was warm as he shaped it to her and MJ pushed into it, shaking. After a minute of maintaining that position, Peter tucked his hand into the cup. Just like slipping on a mitten. MJ made a noise she couldn't help and traced both hands down to his lower back, settling them there. She might've felt him throb against her abdomen, or it could've been her imagination.

Peter touched her with so much care, adding to the heat between her legs. She was less sure about removing her bra than she had been about her shirt, but he didn't try to take it off and he didn't need to, not for this. Not to make her feel this way, with his clueless fingertips running over her nipple while MJ narrowly kept her shit together.

She got the corner of his mouth before kissing him full-on. After their lips started moving together this time, MJ didn't know how she was going to go home. With Peter's hands on her back and chest and this weird secret of the glued hands between them, she felt like she was already in a place she never wanted to leave. MJ was _really_ ok with being pressed skin to skin to Peter Parker.

Her phone went off in her backpack and it wasn't so much a text that was inevitable as something that would've broken them apart sooner or later.

"May's probably gonna be home soon," Peter admitted to her back when MJ reluctantly went to check her phone in case it was her mom.

"Right," she said, feeling confused and elated and colder without him wrapped around her. "And you'll need time to think of an explanation for why you can't open your closet."

"Oh," he remembered. "Oh… oh right. _Shit_."

MJ snickered, then darted her eyes down at her shirt on the floor. She was blushing pretty hard when Peter passed it to her, but so was he.

"Thanks."

"Yep."

She yanked her shirt on to see Peter shrugging his over his shoulders.

"Let me," she insisted, fingers already grabbing the front of his shirt.

MJ's brain was freaking out over this sudden possessiveness, but her hands seemed strangely fine with dressing Peter. He watched her redo each of his buttons, she knew he did. Seemed like they'd agreed not to verbally acknowledge the bulge in the front of his jeans. Not today, anyway.

"There," she said, cocking her head a little spastically. Peter smoothed a hand down the front of his shirt and gave her a smile.

Her mouth opened to say something else, but there weren't any words waiting on her tongue, so she hefted her backpack and Peter led her to the door of the apartment.

They kissed once, quickly, then again, unhurriedly.

"I can walk you?"

"I'm good," she assured him. It was still afternoon and maybe the sun and the air would help MJ transition into her normal self by the time she got home. Maybe. She touched the neck of her shirt to make sure she hadn't put it back on backwards or inside out.

Peter shrugged and smiled, holding the door open for her.

"Spider-Man might follow you anyway, to make sure you get home safe."

MJ put a hand on his shoulder and leaned in to kiss his cheek.

"I know, Peter."

"Good."

She stepped into the hallway.

"It was nice," MJ offered, turning back for a second. "Holding your hand."

He nodded, eyes full of brand-new intimacy.

"It wasn't the worst."


End file.
